Terminated employees will rarely bow out gracefully and say, “Yes—I completely understand why you’re making this decision.” Best-case scenario, they go quietly. Worst-case scenario, you wind up defending a nightmare lawsuit.
Ill-considered and hasty terminations are particularly problematic. They spell lawsuit time and time again. Yet most of those lawsuits are avoidable — if you know what to do.
Keys to Preventing Termination-Related Lawsuits
1. Delay action until HR can evaluate. Have your managers get you, the HR expert, in the game before any damage is done. Impulsive firings, done in the heat of the moment, attract suits like honey attracts flies.
HR knows how similar situations have been handled in the past, what legal challenges may be involved, and whether there might be extenuating circumstances. So have managers delay a decision, even if it means suspending the employee and cutting off their access to corporate systems, while further steps are considered.
Botching a departing employee’s final pay can turn even an amicable parting into a nasty lawsuit. Don’t let it happen to you — attend our webinar next Tuesday and learn what you need to know!
2. Do an evaluation of key factors. There are a number of factors that might effect a decision to terminate. Have managers ask themselves:
- Is termination the appropriate punishment, in light of current policy and past practice?
- Would a jury consider termination fair and commensurate with the offense?
- Has this employee filed complaints, charges, or lawsuits? (For example, a complaint over discrimination or a question about safety, pay issues, or financial shenanigans? If so, juries may see your action as retaliation for a protected act.)
- Could this action be viewed as discrimination? (Is the person a member of a protected class?)
- Is there any contract, written or implied, that must be honored? Go back over your offer letter, for example, and see if there’s any, “and we expect to have you with us for many years,” verbiage.
Final Pay in California: The Rules You Need To Know for Both Resignations and Terminations — webinar next Tuesday!
4. Examine documents. Is there clear and adequate documentation to back up the termination decision? Are there witnesses? (Time and again, experts report, companies assume that there’s paperwork to back up their decisions, but then, once they decide to go to court, somehow they can’t find the papers.)
5. Treat the person with dignity. Many terminations are turned into lawsuits when the terminated employee is treated poorly—for example, conducting an angry firing in public, or refusing to listen to the person’s side of the story.
Next CED, we’ll explain further why termination must be a group decision, and introduce a webinar next week that will help you with one of the trickiest aspects of terminations.
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